Search Results: Authors starting with L from The Manhattan Rare Book Company

Lancaster and New York: American Physical Society. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS of the discovery of the "Lamb shift" "Shortly after World War II, Lamb began his work to check the accuracy of the predictions of Paul Dirac as they related to the energy levels and spectral lines of hydrogen. Dirac's quantum mechanical theory predicted that the hydrogen atom had two possible energy states with equal energies. Lamb's accurate work using radiofrequency resonance techniques, reported in 1947, revealed that there was a minute difference in these energy levels. Small as it was, this Lamb shift necessitated a revision of the theory of the interaction of the electron with electromagnetic radiation. For this work Lamb was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics, which he shared with another leader of research at Columbia, Polykarp Kusch, with whom he had performed wartime research in developing microwave radar" (.Biographical Encyclopedia of… Read More

London: Bruce Rogers, 1932. First edition. Original morocco. Very Good. A MASTERPIECE OF BOOK DESIGN: T.E. LAWRENCE'S TRANSLATION OF THE ODYSSEY, DESIGNED BY BRUCE ROGERS. LIMITED EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 530 COPIES. IN MAGNIFICENT CUSTOM BOX BY ZAEHNSDORF WITH BEAUTIFUL 1928 PHOTOGRAPH OF LAWRENCE IN THE RAF. Contracted by Bruce Rogers in 1928 to create a prose translation of The Odyssey, Lawrence struggled with the text for four years while still working for the RAF. The result, however, was worth the wait, for ultimately the completed book was a huge success and is now recognized as one of the most elegantly printed books of the century. "The limited edition Odyssey, issued in November 1932, is one of Rogers's most beautiful books. The pages have a clean, classical appearance and each chapter opens with Greek vase figures printed on a thick gold and black roundel... Joseph Blumenthal, who was responsible for the 1972 Pierpont Morgan Library exhibition 'Art of the Printed Book: 1455-1955,' states:… Read More

Lancaster, PA and New York, NY: American Inst. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine. FIRST EDITION in original wrappers of Lee and Yang's groundbreaking proposal to determine the nature of parity in weak interactions; essential to the modern understanding of elementary particles. "Following a suggestion made by the experimenter Martin Block, who was his room-mate at a conference in 1956 (at Rochester, in New York), Richard Feynman made the heretical proposal to the meeting that the theta and tau are different states of the same particle, which itself has no definite parity, and that parity is not always conserved. The idea was quickly taken up by Chen Ning Yang and Tsung Dao Lee, who showed that parity is not conserved in the weak interaction; their theory was immediately tested and proved correct by Chien Shiung Wu, and Yang and Lee received the Nobel Prize for their work in 1957- one of the quickest such awards ever made" (Gribbin, Q is for Quantum). "Although physicists still did not… Read More

Geneva: The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, 1905. first edition. cloth. Very Good. Complete run of one of the earliest and most important revolutionary Bolshevik émigré newspapers: Proletarii. Lenin's journal Proletarii (Proletarians), the official organ of the Bolshevik Center, shaped the ideological and political direction of the Bolshevik Party and laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Soviet Union. In this rare complete bound collection of all twenty-six issues of Proletarii, Lenin wrote an astonishing ninety articles. (Read, 64) The journal published articles, essays, and speeches that addressed the concerns of the proletariat and played a crucial role in educating party members and the wider working class about socialist theory, political strategy, and the goals of the Bolshevik Party. Published by the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Geneva, it was smuggled into Russia and aimed to awaken class consciousness, advocate for the overthrow of capitalism, and energize… Read More

Geneva: The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, 1905. First edition. marbled boards. Very Good. Vpered introduced Bolshevik strategy and led to Lenin's dominance during the Russian Revolution. A complete run with noted provenance. In the early twentieth century, the fate of Marxism hung in the balance as various revolutionary factions used journals and party congresses to exert control. We have on offer the full run of Vpered, a newspaper published from January to May 1905 in Geneva and smuggled into Russia. Vladimir Lenin contributed more than 40 articles to Vpered (Forward) and several issues were entirely written by him. Lenin was joined on Vpered's editorial board by Alexander Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky, and Mikhail Olminsky. Financial support was provided by the founder of socialist realism, Maxim Gorky, who also contributed articles to several issues. Iskra (Spark), the predecessor to Vpered and the first underground newspaper of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), was… Read More

Cambridge University: np, 1955. first edition. custom folder. Very Good. WONDERFUL C.S. LEWIS LETTER RESPONDING TO A YOUNG FAN ABOUT THE NARNIA SERIES. Dated October 26, 1955, and written on Lewis's Magdalene College stationery, the letter reads in full: Dear -- Thank you for your nice letter. I am so glad you like the books. There will be one more, and that will be the last. Seven is a good number. The The M's Nephew of course ought to have come first, but one doesn't always write things in the proper order. With Love Yours [signed]C.S. Lewis This letter was acquired directly from the original recipient, who provided the background story: "This is why C.S. Lewis wrote to me: One day, when I was a child, I wrote a letter to him (on my clown stationary), because I loved his books and was hoping he'd write another one. Being 10, I told him what I hoped he would include in his next book, and also informed him that his 6th book in the Narnia series should have come first.  I've treasured that… Read More

Oxford: np, 1952. First edition. nb. Very Good. ONE OF THE FINEST C.S. LEWIS LETTERS TO APPEAR ON THE MARKET, OFFERING INSIGHT INTO THE CREATION OF THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA. WITH MENTION OF TOLKIEN'S "THE HOBBIT" AS A FAVORITE BOOK. Between the publication of the second (Prince Caspian) and third (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) books in his masterpiece series, "The Chronicles of Narnia," Lewis writes to a group of school children, revealing his thoughts about the series and his plans for the remaining books. Over the course of the letter, Lewis: -regrets that Peter and Susan are not returning to Narnia ("they are now getting to the age at which people stop having that sort of adventure for a time"); -offers a preview of the new book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ("Lucy and Edmund find Caspian (now King of course) on board ship, sailing to the Eastern end of the Narnian world. There will be lots about Reepicheep. And there will be a Sea Serpent, and a Dragon, and lots of strange islands.");… Read More

New York: LMDC [Lower Manhattan Development Corporation], 2002. First edition. Spiral bound. Fine. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION of an important record of New York architecture and the history of the World Trade Center Site. Beautifully printed in full color with numerous fold-outs. Self published in 2002 by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Plans in Progress: Innovative Designs for the World Trade Center Site presents the top seven submissions of the international contest it held to rebuild the World Trade Center and revitalize Lower Manhattan. The document employs aspirational language such as "a bright future would eclipse even our darkest hours" that communicates a desire to present New York City (and America) as a phoenix rising from the ashes. As it ascends the phoenix will reassert itself as an international leader of culture, business, and finance. Plans in Progress, luxuriously printed in color with fold outs and vellum overlays, represents a moment of unity and optimism. The moment was… Read More

Madrid; Rome: Didaci Diaz; Camerae Apostolicae, 1763. First edition. Contemporary binding. Very Good. HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT EDITIONS OF THE INDEXES OF BOOKS PROHIBITED BY THE CATHOLIC CHRUCH. The Catholic Church's catalogue of prohibited reading emerged in its modern form as the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1560 and continued to be updated into the twentieth century-with the final edition published in 1948 before the Index's official abolition in 1966 (see Lenard, "Index Librorum Prohibitorum"; History of the Church, p. 168). Many monuments of human knowledge found themselves on the pages of these indexes, including the works of Boccaccio, Copernicus and Erasmus. Also among them, in 1732, was an Italian translation of Paradise Lost. Milton had addressed the English Parliament a century earlier in 1664, lampooning the "2 or 3 glutton Friars" who censored scores of books, pamphlets and papers "as if S. Peter has bequeath'd them the keys of the Presse also out of Paradise" (Areopagitica, p. 7).… Read More

[Dijon]: n.p., 1845. First edition. Boards. Very Good. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF AN UNPUBLISHED SURGICAL TRACT WITH HAND-DRAWN ANATOMICAL FIGURES. The manuscript contains sections largely concerning the amputation and disarticulation of hands and fingers, with chapters on various methods of incision and one titled "Amputations particulières" [Particular amputations]. The accompanying illustrations, "delin[eavit] ad nat[uram]" [drawn from nature] by Dr Frédéric Lépine, depict hands, forearms and digits in various poses (some delineated with incision marks), bone fragments and skeletal sections as well as surgical equipment. The two pages of medical implements also records the names of each device's inventor: Sedillot, Dupierris, Roux, Guyot and Colombat. One tipped-in leaf, titled "Main prisé dans un engrenage de Battoir à Blé" [Hand caught in a gear of a wheat thresher], presents a case study of a mangled hand with two semi-graphic depictions of the injured patient before and after surgery.… Read More

Millertown, NY: Aperture. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Good/Very Good. FIRST TRADE EDITION, DANNY LYON'S OWN ANNOTATED COPY. 
This copy, Lyon's own, was sent to the former executive editor of Camera Arts, Fred Ritchen. Lyon's enclosed letter states, "I've marked some pages which I think makes a good progression over the years, showing a change in subject and style… For the most part I have also marked pictures that are less well known, and often have only appeared in print in this book. Nothing was run by any magazines when the hard back was printed… P.S. I'll need this particular copy back when you're done, as it is my own; though I'm sure I can get you another from Aperture" (December 17, 1982). The resultant May 1983 issue of Camera Arts is included, as is a provenance letter by Tom Ridinger, co-founder of Camera Arts, stating this "must be the rarest copy of Danny Lyon's Pictures from the New World." Lyon… Read More